Adobe will soon be porting the full fledged Flash Player to the ARM processor, bridging the gap between its offering for the desktop and mobiles. Earlier Adobe had pushed ahead Flash Lite, a scaled down version of Flash but now with its plans to bring Flash to ARM processors, the attempt is to snag a major share of mobile devices internet experience.
An excerpt from Technology Review:
Specifically, the companies say that Adobe’s Flash Player 10 and AIR (a platform for building complex Web applications) will be compatible and optimized for the ARM chips available in 2009. While ARM is used in a huge number of mobile phones, the announcement has broader implications: the chips are also used in set-top boxes, mobile Internet devices, personal media players, and automotive platforms.
Though Flash is not coming to the iPhone, its hoped that this initiative will aid that process too by showing that it is possible to run full blown Flash functionality without slowing down the mobile device. Developers of mobile software also stand to benefit from the availability of the same technology across multiple devices, essentially negating the need to work on portability issues. Adobe does not want to miss out from being the major format for videos on mobile as well, especially considering how Microsoft is pushing Silverlight.